High-Tech Aging: Improving Lives Today is a video that portrays technology’s potential to facilitate coordinated care and aging in place. The story follows a character named Alma from home to hospital, to rehabilitation and back to home again. Throughout her experience of having and recovering from a stroke, Alma and her caregivers use personal health tablets, a medication dispenser, electronic health records, home monitoring, telehealth, engagement technologies, and assistive technologies. They also use a personal emergency response system, with automatic fall detection, to plan her care, to communicate with each other and to allow her to remain safely at home with support.
‘Home Safety’ Posts
High-Tech Aging Improving Lives Today
January 4th, 2013 by Doris Bersing
Aging In Place: New Initiatives Around the Country
October 24th, 2012 by Doris Bersing
Robin Stone, Researcher and Former Assistant Secretary for Aging wrote that “…Aging in place isn’t as easy as it sounds … she continues…Of course, we can’t yet guarantee that aging in place won’t be an exhausting struggle for older adults and their families. We have a lot more work to do before every older American can grow old easily wherever they choose…”
What Ms. Stone refers to has also to do with new initiatives that around the country are growing to pay more attention to the physical environment of our seniors to help them age gracefully, in place. Most important, she says, “…we want to make sure that older adults … can look forward to living their later years exactly the way they want to live, in the place they want to call home.Read the article
Aging in Place: the Future is Gero-Technology
August 19th, 2012 by Doris Bersing
Experts agree that the home care industries (non-medical home care, home health care, and geriatric care management) are at the early stages of maximizing benefits of technology. Information about the individual client is not yet passed effectively or electronically between the various locations a care recipient may visit. In a survey of home care managers responsible for a total of 34,509 workers, telephone and email dominate the communication toolkit. Little in-home use is made of telehealth and chronic disease monitoring tech, even less use of video communication with either the care recipient or the family. As non-institutional home care plays a growing role along the care continuum, a Home Care Information Network (HCIN) will form, enabling important information to follow the care recipient across building boundaries, boosting quality and informing and reassuring families. To maximize its benefit, organizations that deliver care must:
1) Boost partnerships that span non-medical, home health, and geriatric care
2) Craft a technology strategy that enables integration of processes and data
3) Identify strategic and local technology partnerships to turn strategy into reality
4) Inspire and engage family members, partners and staff about technology use
Costs for Adapting a Home for Senior Living, Disabilities or an Illness
January 9th, 2012 by Doris Bersing
By Marc Mendelsohn, Sageing in Place
Statistics show that most people would do almost anything reasonable to avoid moving from the comfort of their home yet in many cases their homes are not adapted to accommodate their current and changing needs. The question arises as to what is necessary and the associated costs to make the modifications to enable an individual to continue living safely and as independently as possible in their homes. Read more
Keeping People Aging in Place: Safe at Home
May 31st, 2011 by Doris Bersing
If you have an elderly parent, chances are you’ve spent more than one sleepless night worrying about such things. Thankfully, the past few years have seen a boom in technical innovations that can prolong their independence and help you to be a more effective caregiver, even from afar.
They include automatic activity sensors, smart pillboxes, and communicators that share health data with you or a medical pro. These gizmos (and the monitoring services that typically come with them) can be pricey, ranging from a few hundred dollars to several thousand a year – and neither Medicare nor most private health insurers typically cover them (though some will if they’re prescribed by a doctor).
The Home Care Environment for Clients With Advanced ALS: Home Care of a Person With ALS
April 12th, 2011 by Doris Bersing
What makes physical care so challenging in advanced ALS is the absence of other indicators of change — the verbal and physical response to care. The physical changes are much more subtle, and the nurse is more likely to detect changes when there is a connection with the patient that allows a rhythm to unfold. Daily inspections included in the assessment are crucial if potential problems are to be avoided. Particular challenges of patients with ALS who are locked-in follow. It is important to provide a blueprint for supplies in establishing and maintaining a safe home care environment.
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“IF I ever need to go to a nursing home, kill me first”
April 2nd, 2011 by Doris Bersing
Aging in Place: You do not need to leave your home!
Given that 89% of people do not want to leave their homes, this statement featured on the article The Technology for Monitoring Elderly Relatives on The New York Times (July 28, 2010) about new technologies to help people stay at their home, makes total sense.
The purpose of many of these technologies is to provide enough supervision to make it possible for elderly people to stay in their homes rather than move to an assisted-living facility or nursing home — a goal almost universally embraced as both emotionally and financially desirable.
